This was a book talk I did for a youth collection development class.Graphic Novels, due to their visual nature, are an excellent medium to tell stories about identity and belonging, about race and prejudice.
Because comics literally put a face on the characters, they can create an instant understanding and connection between them and the reader.
Today I want to talk about two books that are incredible examples of how this can be accomplished:
American Born Chinese by Gene Luan Yang and
Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow by James Sturm and Rich Tommaso.
American Born Chinese by Gene Yang was published in 2006 and was a Finalist for the National Book Award in young people’s literature that year, the first graphic novel ever to be recognized by the national book foundation. In 2007, it won the ALA’s Michael L. Printz Award and the Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Album.
Gene Yang is a high school computer science teacher who had previously published several short comics, including Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks. He is a major proponent of using comics in teaching, and has created a web resource on teaching with comics as part of his M. Ed. degree which can be accessed through his site, humble comics
American Born Chinese is Yang’s effort to say something about his experiences growing up as an Asian-American. It tells three stories; the legend of the Monkey King, who didn’t want to be a monkey, the story of Jin Wang, a Chinese American boy trying to fit into a predominantly white school in the suburbs, and the story of Danny, an all American high school kid whose life is ruined every year when his cousin Chin-Kee comes to visit.
These three stories appear at first to be separate, but by the end we discover that they are really three different parts of the same story. The Monkey King and Jin Wang both want to become something else, to stop being different and fit in with their peers. Danny does fit in, until Chin-Kee, the embodiment of every racist stereotype, comes to visit. Chin-Kee comes every year, because Danny, like the monkey king, cannot change what he is. He must accept and embrace all the parts of himself, and then Chin-Kee will no longer have power over him. The genius of this book is that Yang does not tell us this – he shows us and in such a way that the reader gets to figure it out for themselves. When the reader sees Chin-Kee, we understand what he is and what he means. That is the great power of the visual medium.
This is a serious theme, treated with a humorous, interesting story, told with exciting art, a perfectly constructed narrative and a beautiful voice. I recommend it very highly for ages 14 and over.
The second book I want to talk about is Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow by James Sturm and Rich Tommaso. It was published in 2008 and was the Eisner Award Winner for Best Reality-Based Work and an NAACP Award Nominee for Best Literary Work for Youth/Teens.
The author , James Sturm, is the co founder of the Centre for Cartoon Studies and the founder of the National Association of Comics Art Educators. His most famous book is the award winning The Golum’s Mighty Swing, which was also about baseball. The artist, Rich Tommaso, is the author and artist of a number of indy comics. The authors have created a great teacher’s guide for the this book, with lost of links to websites about Satchel Paige, the negro leagues and the Jim Crow laws.
Satchel Paige was the best pitcher in the negro leagues from the 1920s to the 1940s, and after the major league was integrated, he pitched in the majors until he was well into his 60s. He was the highest paid athlete in the world in the 1940s and one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived. But this is not a book about Satchel Paige. It is a book about the legend of Satchel Paige, and what he meant to two generations of black sharecroppers in the Jim Crow south. The book is written as a first person narrative, telling the story of a man who faced Paige during his brief career in the negro leagues, and fifteen years later, took his son to see an exhibition game between Paige’s all Stars and the local white-only team. In between these two events, we see how the white landowners maintained their control in the south through intimidation, humiliation, and violence and how this beat down the black sharecropper.
This is a story about representation and what it means for an oppressed person to see someone who looks like themselves stand up to the forces of oppression and how seeing that creates hope and belief in possibilities for the future.
Sturm and Tommaso deal with an incredibly difficult story in the most amazing way. The text and art are both simple and poignant throughout, and harsh when they need to be. This is an emotional book. It will make readers angry, and it will make them sad. Most of all, it left me in awe of the storytelling ability of Sturm and Tommaso. It is not an easy book, but it is a necessary book and I recommend it very highly for teens and adults both, and particularly for students of American History.
While both of these books are by male authors, about male characters, the quality of storytelling and importance of the subject matter make these must reads for boys and girls both. They are wonderful examples of what can be done in the comics medium and I would suggest these both for veteran comics readers and those who have never touched a graphic novel.
